reat man has always seemed to me the greatest of created things, and
though Prince Puckler can scarcely be numbered among the great men of
mankind, he was undoubtedly the greatest among those who surrounded him
at Branitz. In me, the youth of nineteen, he awakened admiration,
interest, and curiosity, and his "You are a poet" sometimes strengthened
my courage, sometimes disheartened me. My boyish ambitions in those days
had but one purpose, and that was the vocation of a poet.

I was still ignorant that the Muse kisses only those who have won her
love by the greatest sufferings. Life as yet seemed a festal hall, and as
the bird flies from bough to bough wherever a red berry tempts him, my
heart was attracted by every pair of bright eyes which glanced kindly at
me. When I entered upon my last term, my Leporello list was long enough,
and contained pictures from many different classes. But my hour, too,
seemed on the point of striking, for when I went home in my last
Christmas vacation I thought myself really in love with the charming
daughter of the pleasant widow of a landed proprietor. Nay, though only
nineteen, I even considered whether I should not unite her destiny with
mine, and formally ask her hand. My father had offered himself to my
mother at the same age.

In Kottbus I was treated with the respect due to a man, but at home I was
still "the boy," and the youngest of us three "little ones." Ludo, as a
lieutenant, had a position in society, while I was yet a schoolboy. Amid
these surroundings I realized how hasty and premature my intention had
been.

Only four of us came to keep Christmas at home, for Martha now lived in
Dresden as the wife of Lieutenant Baron Curt von Brandenstein, the nephew
of our Aunt Sophie's husband. Her wedding ceremony in the cathedral was,
of course, performed by the court-chaplain Strauss.

My grandmother had died, but my Aunt Sophie still lived in Dresden, and
spent her summers in Blasewitz. Her hospitable house always afforded an
atmosphere very stimulating to intellectual life, so I spent more time
there than in my mother's more quiet residence at Pillnitz.

I had usually passed part of the long--or, as it was called, the
"dog-day"--vacation in or near Dresden, but I also took pleasant
pedestrian tours in Bohemia, and after my promotion to the senior class,
through the Black Forest.

It was a delightful excursion! Yet I can never recall it without a tinge
of sadness, for my two c